Friday, January 22, 2016

Reports from the Orient Express - Constantinople 1204

This is a review of the Constantinople (1204) chapter of the revised Call of Cthulhu campaign Horror on the Orient Express (Chaosium: 2014) based on actual play. I intend to review each chapter of this venerable campaign as we play through it, highlighting what I see as strengths and weaknesses, and providing some suggestions along the way for what I’d do differently if running it again. Spoilers follow, so don’t read on if you ever plan to play in this classic Call of Cthulhu campaign.The Dark CrusaderThe Dark Ages flashback scenario provides the players an
opportunity to experience a completely different change of pace. This
scenario presents a series of combat-based encounters, each of which the
characters must overcome to in order to reach their final, fateful, meeting
with Sedefkar himself.

The scenario provides six pre-generated characters,
which should make it easy for the players to get right into the action.
Unfortunately these characters are only presented in the traditional format,
with background text and summarised statistics in the usual double column
format used for NPCS, running over several pages. This means you can’t
easily print and cut them out, as the information for one character runs over
several pages and contains some details the players may not want to share
immediately. More importantly, under 7th Edition the
players need to have a breakdown of their Hard and Extreme success chance for
every skill, and this format does not allow for this in any but the combat
skills.

The GM is left with the option of a messy print and
cut, leaving players to make on-the-fly calculations at the table, preparing in
advance by transcribing the characters onto proper character sheets by hand, or
using the electronic Dark Ages character sheet found in the ‘Through the Ages’
publication with does these calculations automatically (I strongly recommend
the latter to save time and as you can also copy and paste some of the key
character information and inventory into the second page, and enter the relevant
weapon damage and luck scores, making it easy for the players to get
started).While this arrangement for pre-generated characters
is not uncommon in Chaosium published Call of Cthulhu publications, it does seem an unusual
oversight in a product like Horror on the Orient Express which is packed with
so many handouts, and which boasts an entire book of ready-to-play
pre-generated characters.The backdrop of the scenario is both extremely
evocative and unique. The year is 1204 and Constantinople has been attacked
by the army of the fourth crusade and is in the throes of pillage by Frankish
and Venetian forces. The characters take the roles of knights or
other members of the Crusader army tasked with searching the city for
unholy artefacts they suspect are having a baleful influence. After some high-level opening scenes which allow
the players as initial chance to describe their investigator and briefly
interact with the famous siege, the scenario slowly introduces the investigators to
the city, beginning with a briefing from their patron and a series of
vignettes to illustrate the plight of its inhabitants. There is a minor
ambush with the remnants of the defending forces to get the players some combat
experience and a memorable and disturbing interview with a priest who has
critical information.From this point on the scenario consists primarily
of a series of brutal combat encounters, as the investigators fight their way
to a final confrontation with Sedefkar. Whether or not your group will
enjoy this depends a great deal on your players and their preferred style
of play.

On one hand, the fast-paced brutality of these
encounters provides a marked change of pace from the main campaign thus far,
and as the players have new, temporary, investigators they can lay waste to
their foes with little concern of consequence. Players who enjoy such
action will likely have a grand time.

On the other hand, if your players enjoy the art of
investigation, and prefer to find non-violent methods of resolving challenges,
then they may not enjoy this scenario as much and you may need to be prepared
to improvise options for the investigators to trick, intimidate or avoid their
foes, and potentially modify the pre-generated characters to ensure their
skills support this approach.

The most unusual encounter in the scenario involves
the investigators venturing into an underground cistern where they are
confronted by an angry Anatolian Dragon. This fearsome beast is
foreshadowed several times, but has no actual relevance to the core plot of the
scenario, aside from providing proof of supernatural forces and the desperation
of the cities inhabitants (who summoned it).

The dragon is a tough combat encounter for the
characters, and while a full group of investigators are likely to prevail over
it if they attack collectively, it is likely that several of their number will be
slain, or significantly injured (under 7th Edition the
Dragon is making a number of attacks equal to the investigators fighting it +2
per round, so despite a relatively low chance to hit of 30%, if the Keeper does
get a higher level of success than the players the Investigators are likely to
suffer significant damage. If the Keeper
scores an extreme success an investigator will be killed.

To prevail, the investigators must gamble they can
kill the dragon (and spot its weakness) before the dragon has opportunity to
kill or incapacitate too many of their number. Should the investigators
encounter the dragon piecemeal, or prolong the fight, the outcome could be much
more deadly.

The encounter with the Dragon, therefore, has the
potential to be tense, and cool (after all how many Cthulhu investigators can
boast they have killed a dragon?). However, it also has the potential to
kill or significantly weaken the investigators, and while this would be a
reasonable outcome the climax of the scenario, this is just a side encounter
with no direct connection to the plot.
Accordingly, if you plan to run this encounter I suggest either giving
the characters one mark of destiny at the beginning of the scenario (allowing
them to survive one otherwise fatal injury) or to allow the investigators a
chance to sneak up (and potentially past) the dragon as it feeds on its
previous victims.

The final encounter with the skin demons and the Red Tower
is a truly loathsome affair and has the potential to be both extremely memorable for the
series of grisly scenes, and solidify the evil of the Simulacrum in the minds
of the players. There are certainly
echoes of the authors previous work on Masks of Nyarlathotep here.

The six levels of tower the investigators must traverse to
confront Sedefkar, while evocative, present little opportunity for interaction
for the players. Keepers might like to
create details of some of Sedefkar’s victims (locals, venetians or fellow
Franks) and allow the investigators an opportunity to swear vengeance on their
behalf, or free those who are not fatally wounded to keep things interesting.

The final encounter with Sedefkar is similar in stakes to
the Dragon fight earlier. If the
characters attack together, spy the weakness in the Simulacrum, and seek to
overwhelm their foe, they are likely to prevail before he completes the ritual.

If
they attack piecemeal or in an uncoordinated way, or fail to deduce the joins
in the Simulacrum they are likely to die rapidly. In my game the investigators swiftly worked
out that they could use a fighting manoeuvre to disarm Sedekfar without much
effort, knock off one piece of armour and strike him down with relative ease
(as the bonus die for outnumbering offset the penalty dice or increased level
of difficulty for targeting a specific location). However, none of the characters were uninjured, and several had only a single hit point, so it could easily have worked out differently.

In summary:

PROS

There are pre-generated investigators each with their own backstory.

The setting and plot are very atmospheric and interesting and there is good foreshadowing of major campaign elements, and elements within the scenario.

The players may enjoy the change of pace by playing violent and disposable pre-generated investigators in a series of bloody battles.

The investigators battle, and have a chance to defeat, many memorable foes including a Dragon and Sedefkar himself.

CONS

The pre-generated character sheets are not well set out for actual use.

The plot is relatively linear and there are few scripted opportunities to investigate or resolve encounters through non-violent means.

If run as written, the plot has the potential to be extremely deadly, and the investigators are likely to be defeated unless the work together and look for weaknesses in their foes.

In summary the Dark Ages chapter of the campaign has the potential to provide a great change of pace, with some truly horrific scenes and memorable battles. However, without some modification there is a risk that the linear nature of the plot and high stakes of several combat encounters could result in the death of some or all of the investigators before they reach the climax and leave a bad taste in the mouths of some players.

My players hated this scenario. I killed over 20 investigators before a TPK at the bottom of the Red Tower. All the encounters were combat based. My players said they'd rather have had the summary instead.